The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each of the 11 million songs AllofMP3 allegedly pirated.
[…]
The companies behind the claim, which include the major record labels Arista Records LLC, Warner Bros. Records Inc., Capitol Records Inc. and UMG Recordings Inc., filed the suit in a New York federal court claiming that “…Mediaservices’ sites sell millions of songs by their artists without paying them ‘a dime’ for the right to do so.”
And quoting the AllofMP3 blog (which is a dirt cheap way to buy MP3s, if you haven’t already seen it):
An attempt by the major record labels to use a U.S. court to as part of its campaign against AllofMP3.com is imprudent.
AllofMP3 understands that several US record label companies filed a lawsuit against Mediaservices in New York. This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3.com does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3.com operates legally in Russia.
In the mean time, AllofMP3.com plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws.
The RIAA is just a bunch of greedy bastards who don’t give a rip about the artists (who already make just pennies on the price of CDs and digital sales). I really wish I could order some RIAA toilet paper and wipe my bum with those nitwits.
Comments
Reading that site, it seems an utterly ludicrous situation. AllofMP3.com is based in Russia, and run by a Russian company, an fully complies with Russian law, including paying a license fee to the Russian equivalent of the RIAA, ROM, but the US RIAA claims it’s operating illegally basically because THEY are not getting any money. This is despite the fact the main reason they aren’t getting any money is that they refuse to recognise ROM as a legitimate organisation (the only reason for this, it seems to me, is because they’re Russian), and collect the royalties from them.